Netflix May Be Losing $192 Million Per Month From Piracy, Study Claims (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: As many as 1 in 5 people today are mooching off of someone else's account when streaming video from Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Video, according to a new study from CordCutting.com. Of these, Netflix tends to be pirated for the longest period -- 26 months, compared with 16 months for Amazon Prime Video or 11 months for Hulu. That could be because Netflix freeloaders often mooch off their family instead of a friend -- 48 percent use their parents' login, while another 14 percent use their sister or brother's credentials, the firm found. At a base price of $7.99 per month (the study was performed before Netflix's January 2019 price increase), freeloading users could save $207.74 over a 26-month period. At scale, these losses can add up, the study claims.

The report estimates Netflix could be losing $192 million in monthly revenue from piracy -- more than either Amazon or Hulu, at $45 million per month and $40 million per month, respectively. Millennials, not surprisingly, account for much of the freeloading. They're the largest demographic pirating Netflix (18 percent) and Hulu's service (20 percent). But oddly, it was Baby Boomers who were more likely to borrow someone else's account to access Amazon Prime Video. According to the study, 59.3 percent said they would pay for Netflix (or around 14 million people), contributing at least $112 million in monthly revenue, if they lost access. And 37.8 percent, or 2 million, said they'd pay for Hulu; 27.6 percent, or 1 million people, said they'd pay for Prime Video.

Comments

Again this rubish?

[LavouraArcaica]

Again this bulshit-study where it is assumed that every pirated-material would be purchased if piracy wouldn't be on the table?

That's so 90's...

Re: Again this rubish?

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to that, by what bullshit definition is watching something owned by a friend or family member considered piracy?

I agree, this study is utter rubbish.

Re:Again this rubish?

[smooth wombat]

This is the same bullshit when people say New York lost 25,000 jobs because they didn't want to subsidize Amazon. The jobs were never created so nothing was lost.

Just like these people would never have paid for the content so nothing is lost, right?

Re:Again this rubish?

[pr0fessor]

Netflix doesn't just charge by account but also each tear of service has a different number of max streams 2 for the standard account and 4 for the premium. It's not really piracy if someone is paying extra for more streams?

 

Re:Again this rubish?

[Oswald McWeany]

Netflix made 16 billion in profit last year. I wish that I could be "victimized" like that.

Playing devil's advocate; this is the feast before the famine.

There are a lot of Netflix wannabes. Disney, CBS, BBC, etc, are all pulling a lot of content off of Netflix. Netflix is a veritable wasteland of well-known content compared to what it was even three years ago, and it's only going to get worse. They're having to make their own stuff to maintain content.

I highly doubt Netflix are going to go under- but Netflix execs are probably looking at their cheques with concern- are their end of year bonuses going to be so well padded in 5 years from now? How are they ever going to be able to afford the bigger yacht if they lose half their marketshare in the upcoming years.

Netflix is bathing in money right now, but, it is potentially facing a less rosy future. They're not going to become the next blockbusters and disappear, but they may not dominate the landscape in the near future either. They're looking for ways to scrape the barrel.

That's nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nothing compared to the housing market losing $7.2 TRILLION per year from pirates living more than one person per house.

Watching together

[religionofpeas]

I wonder how much money they are losing because family members watch a movie together, instead of each streaming to their own account ?

This is a non-story

[timholman]

In the first place, the CEO of Netflix has stated that he considers account sharing to be an overall positive, not a negative.

Second, if Netflix wants to fix this "problem", it is completely within their power. Institute a single-stream HD plan (instead of the current single-stream SD plan), and many households will switch to it, instead of the double-stream HD plan. Or, Netflix could simply charge a fixed price per additional stream, in which case the owner of the account becomes moot.

Regardless, if I'm paying for a stream, why does it matter who I allow to use it? If that person hogs the stream and locks me out, that is no one's problem but mine. Either I change the password, or I buy another stream.

Re:Faulty assumption

[Carewolf]

This assumes that 100% of the moochers would have paid for an account if they didn't mooch. I don't know what proportion of people would actually have paid for an account, but I'm guessing more than 10% and less than 50%? Still a lot, but the presence of that glaring error in the conclusions makes me wonder how much the study authors are biasing their assumptions to make the most headline-grabbing number possible, rather than engaging in a good-faith effort to find out how much money these companies are really losing.

Also assumes they someone didn't pay for the extra seats in the account. The way Netflix works is that you have to buy multiple seats, so ofcourse when you legally buy them, and then actually use them.. That shouldn't count as piracy, but now apparently does..

Watching things that are paid for, is now piracy....

Re:Faulty assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

This assumes that 100% of the moochers would have paid for an account if they didn't mooch.

Actually TFA quite clearly states that it assumes 59.3% moochers would have paid for an account if they didn't mooch, based on a survey where 59.3% of the respondents who answered that they were currently sharing someone else's single-user-only Netflix account ALSO answered that if they lost access to that account they'd go and pay for an account of their own.

Re:Greed

[GungaDan]

"my wife purchased her pain ticket with my Visa"

Kinky.

Account Sharing, not piracy.

[sarkeizen]

Personally, I'm disappointed that Slashdot actually posted this.

So it seems that this isn't about piracy at all. Just account sharing, which is defined as "anyone who used a streaming service but did not pay for it". This would include ones parents, common law spouse, girlfriend/boyfriend, or sibling - collectively totaling over 60% of the Netflix account sharers. It doesn't really clarify how they determined if this was inside or outside the policy for the given service based on the definition I'd wager they simply didn't care.

How accurate this is depends significantly how the questions were posed. i.e. Saying "Do you pay for your own Netflix account or do you use someone else's?" could easily mean to someone who isn't violating the TOS

Also to those who are saying the implied claim is that 100% of the people who use someone else's credentials would buy their own. Apparently they asked the question "If you lost access to this credential would you get your own." For Netflix aboutt 60% said "yes" and this was used to determine the overall "cost" of account sharing.

I once lost 10 billion

[Gabest]

By not playing the lottery.

Re:Faulty assumption

[apoc.famine]

The way Netflix works is that you have to buy multiple seats, so ofcourse when you legally buy them, and then actually use them.. That shouldn't count as piracy, but now apparently does..

And it doesn't factor in all those people who bought the extra seats and then didn't use them either. Pure profit for Netflix! If you're going to count "piracy" losses, you need to count the "bought but didn't use" gains against that, since the two are very much related.

If there was only one login available at one time, you wouldn't have much "piracy", but you wouldn't have all that bought-but-didn't-use revenue either.